-----Mensaje original-----
De: Bertil Haggman
Enviado el: lunes 18 de mayo de 1998 6:29
Para: ernst-juenger-l@maillist.ox.ac.uk
Asunto: Re: 12th Contribution by Bertil Haggman from _Die Schere_
172 (p. 122)
"In diesem Rahmen ist die Rueckkehr von Promethiden
ein Ereignis unter anderen. Prometheus ist der
Bote der Titanen zu den Goettern; er wetteifert
mit ihnen, doch reicht er nicht an sie heran. Was
Goetter durch ein 'Es werde' schaffen, etwa den
Menschen, bedeutet fuer ihn harte Fron. Prometheus
bildet Menschen, doch erschafft sie nicht.
Immerhin koennte man mit den Titanen auskommen. Das
Zeitalter des Kronos galt bei den Alten trotz
seiner Grausamkeiten fuer das Goldene. Die Menschen
alterten nicht und ueberlebten geistig, nachdem sie
entschlummert waren - das geht noch ueber Huxley
hinaus.
Auf die Rueckkehr titanischen Wessens in die Gestalt
des Arbeiters verweist der Zustrom plutonischer
Energie, die voresrtst eher gefuerchtet, ja negiert
wird als bherrscht. Das wird erst moeglich, wenn
sie sich personifiziert.
Auch hier ist die Buehne gerichtet, bevor das Schauspiel
beginnt. Gerichtet heisst sowohl geruestet wie auf-
geraeumt. Das Publikum ist zur Stelle, die Erwartung
auch.
Dass Titanen letzthin nicht genuegen, hat das Scheitern
des nach ihnen getauften Schiffes am Eisberg augurisch
bestimmt. Es ist selten, dass Kassandra so in die
Einzelheiten geht."
Commentary
It is in my opinion extraordinary that EJ brought up
the Titanic in 1990, as we have all in 1998 been
reminded of the catastrophe by the succesful movie
of James Cameron. He commented on the night of the
Oscar gala 1998 on the sinking of Titanic:
'The sense was that they were in the shining,
golden, upwards spiral of progress and that
everything was only to get better and better,
and nicer and nicer: now we have electric light,
we have subways, and we have flying machines,
and we have transatlantic travel through the
power of steam, which is what the Titanic
represents. And the telephone had just been
invented, and movies were new and people were
exited about that. There was recording of music
for the first time, wireless telecommunications.
All of these things that we of course take for
granted were new at that time. So there is this
tremendous optimism, this tremendous excitement.
If we understand and absorb the message of the
warning against putting our faith optimisti-
cally in technology, putting your faith
optimistically in the application of technology
by flawed systems, because it was really
human failures that sank the Titanic, not the
ship itself. The technology itself was fine.
It was the state of the art the time. Titanic
was a well made ship. Its hard to criticise
its mode of fabrication. It was just piloted into
an iceberg in the middle of the ocean. It was
not meant to survive that. There are many
metaphors that can be gleaned from the Titanic.
All that, I think, accounts for its continuing
fascination for the public at large with a
disaster that happened 85 years ago.'
[Roberto Calvo Macias] But he lets unresolved one of the big discussions of this Time, and of EJ vision of life ( quoted from another point of view by MH). Can we control tecnology? The failures of tecnology are our failures? in wich measure is the singular person responsive from tecnology dangers?
Best wishes
roberto
Greetings
Bertil Haggman